Leah and the Love God
by Feisty Y. Beden
Summary: Leah Clearwater's rage is surprisingly passionate for someone who doesn't believe in Love... A short multishot with blue bathrobe for FGB.
1. Oblivious Snail

**A/N: Hello, and welcome to storytime hour with in a blue bathrobe and Feisty. This story was originally supposed to be a oneshot for Fandom Gives Back for deelovely60, but it ended up kind of growing impossibly larger and longer, straining painfully against the confines of the ...buttons of no, wait, the... Word document, into a ...throbbing... uh, multichapter. **

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: Oblivious Snail<strong>

In the pale pink light of the sunrise, I throw my arm over, expecting to find his warm body next to me. My sheets are cold, smooth. It's the smoothness, the lack of dirt and granules of sand, that makes my body realize, even before my mind will admit it, that he's not here. That he will never _be_here again. "Fuck," I say out loud. Lately, I seem to begin a lot of days this way.

I remember, foggily, what it was like to wake up with his arms around me, skin taut and muscular and musky, his even breathing washing up and over me like the tide. I sit up slowly and stare at the empty spot in my bed. Christ, I still sleep curled up on "my side" of the bed. I wonder if I will always save his side of the bed just in case he comes back. I'm so angry for even entertaining the possibility that I punch the pillow that still smells like him. I should have changed the pillowcase, but I'm an idiot, a masochist. It's the only thing left I have of him, from the time he was mine.

But he was never mine.

I get out of bed and stumble to my dresser. I steel myself to look at my reflection in the mirror above the dresser, the pads of my fingers touching the dark wood my dad sanded and finished when I was still a baby. I start with my head bent down, chin to chest, and take a deep breath with my eyes closed. _Please be someone different today. Please wake up from this crapper of a life. Just wake the fuck up. Be anyone but me._Slowly, hopefully, I lift up my head and open my eyes, begging for a different girl to look back at me. Someone I don't recognize.

But it's always me, no matter how many times I wish different. And I know I'm not good enough.

Maybe in another time, another world. There's probably some parallel universe out there where life isn't completely fucked up, where people in love can just stay in love. I bet in that alternate universe the alterna-version of me is getting primo morning nookie from alterna-him. I bet in that alternate universe my alterna-dad is still alive.

"I hate you," I say to my reflection, and her mouth moves just like mine, hating me right back.

When you're fatherless _and_a scorned woman, you can be as crabby as you want. I don't know if that was written somewhere, but I've decided it's true. When I get to the kitchen, my idiot brother is drinking milk right out of the carton. Such a neanderthal. "What makes you think anyone wants to drink your backwash?" I say, reaching for the container. His head is tilted way back, so when I yank the milk away, he gets a face full of it. Milk is dripping off the ends of his shaggy eyebrows. "Got milk?" I say like an asshole, because I'm an asshole. It's allowed.

"Why don't you find someone to dump you again?" he says as he wipes his face up with a dishcloth. I'm sure he'll put the cloth right back on the hook instead of in the laundry, like we _want_our pots dried with soured milk and teenage-boy spittle.

I ride my bicycle to the cemetery, the same way I do every morning. I like the burning in my legs as I strain to go uphill, pushing all my weight against the pedals. Physical challenges, well, they're things I _know_ I can handle. I'm young, my body's strong, and I have the will to succeed. And that's all you need. For fifteen minutes I'm a well-oiled machine, my body doing exactly what I will it to. My brain is focused on sending signals to pump blood, make the valves in my heart open and close. There's no room to feel sorry for myself. All I know is the feel of the wind cutting into my lungs, my aching hamstrings, just pure animal instinct. And then when I ditch the bike by the cemetery gate, my toxic, human thoughts seep back into my body. No longer animal nor machine. Only me. Only Leah. Only_wrong_.

It's hard enough when the love of your life ditches you for your own cousin-I mean, that is like some Greek mythology shit-but for all of us to be living practically on top of each other ... I can't even have the comfort of distance, of ignorance. I see him touch her, and I can feel the ghost of his fingertips flit across my skin. I see him touch her, and I wish I were blind.

I see him touch her, and I wish I were dead.

It's like they're there every time I turn around, holding hands, walking attached at the hip, gazing at each other like they are the only people on earth-the only people on earth who _matter_, at least. Were we ever this disgusting? My breath catches when I think of the _we_ that I'll never be part of again. There is no _we_, only a _me_ and a _them_.

My eyes are already stinging with tears by the time I reach the familiar gravestone. "Hey, Dad," I say. "It's me again. Just saying hi. Just saying I miss you. I wish you were here to tell me things will be okay, even if we both know that isn't true." Nothing's been right since Dad died. Well, the truth is that things were going downhill far before then, but Dad's death was like the assfucking cake topper on a seven-tiered shit cake.

The wind rustles around me, almost like Dad is telling me not to think such foul language on sacred ground. "I can't help it, okay?" I shout to the wind. "Life's a fucking joke." The breeze grows stronger, and a flower skitters across the matted-down grass and lands by my foot. I can smell it before my fingers curl around the stem. A violet rose, special ordered from a farm in California. Sam used to get these for me, long ago. I look past Dad's grave to see where the rose has come from, and there's a whole bouquet of them lying in front of one of those tasteless, bourgeois family mausoleums-the McMansion of gravestones: concrete pillars, ridiculous curlicues, fat little naked angels.

Carved in gigantic, ridiculous, Vegas-style letters (why didn't they just use a neon sign and a couple of naked lady silhouette mudflaps and be done with it?) on the side of the mausoleum is one name: "ULEY." Figures. How have I never noticed this monstrosity before? Maybe my eyes just refused to acknowledge its existence, like that bit in_Hitchhiker's_ where they paint the mountain pink to make it disappear. I crush the roses under my feet, which, okay, is kind of bitchy and disrespectful, but my god, I can't believe Sam is giving dead people the flowers he used to special order for me. _My_flowers. And whatever the fuck do stupid fat angel babies have to do with the Quileutes? I mean, none of that makes even a lick of a sense.

The scent of the crushed rose petals thrusts me deep into the past like I'm falling down a hole. There's Sam showing up at my doorstep for our first date, grinning nervously, offering me these lavender blooms. There's his bed covered in the fragrant petals the night we first had sex. I remember the coolness of the petals on my bare skin as he moved, slick and warm, on top of and in me. And there's the last time, the dozen he sent in apology for, you know, falling in love with my goddamn _cousin_, for the love of Pete. All those memories ripping through the gray matter in my brain in the time it takes me to crush the blossoms under my feet.

Suddenly just crushing the roses under my feet isn't enough. I kneel down and tear the roses apart, shred every last bit of them, my hands cut up from the thorns the florist has neglected to remove. The pain is welcome; it takes away the focus from the slow implosion of my heart. My hands are bloody, but I don't care. I'm just pulverizing rosebuds and screaming because life is so fucking unfair. To add insult to injury, one of those asinine granite cherubs on the tomb stares at me with an impish smile on him face, like my anguish is somehow _funny_ to him. "Funny? You think this is fucking _funny_? What do you think you know about love? About losing everyone you ever cared about?"

The carved stone continues to leer and smirk at me. "Of course you don't care. You don't feel a damn thing!" I stand up and kick the stupid, tacky cherub as hard as I can, but nothing will remove that smug grin from his face. In frustration, I squeeze the head of the statue with my hand, like I'm trying to break it clear off. Maybe I am. I'm fully aware I should have more respect for the dead, but ... that _face_, mocking me. It's too much. As my rage ebbs a little, I draw my hands away to see his face bloodied from my wounded hands. He resembles a serial killer: blood-splattered, unfazed, even happy. At least now he looks like the sociopath he is.

I realize that if anyone's been watching me just now, they probably think I'm an escapee from some home for the criminally insane, so I wipe my hands off on the grass, smooth out my clothes, and begin to walk out of the cemetery as if I were a sane woman. When I look over my shoulder to get one last glance at my dad's gravestone, the stupid little naked angel looks as pleased with himself as ever. _Fuck love. Fuck life. Fuck you all_, I think, raising a double-barreled bird-flip high enough for all the stupid naked angels in the world to see before I fetch the bicycle I've carelessly discarded just beyond the cemetery gates.

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><p>Yeah, I listen.<p>

I mean, Valentine's is my Day, even though it's been bastardized into a monstrosity of farcical proportions, but worship is worship, and without it I fade.

Ever hear of Uller? Not unless you're a Finnish skier who shoots archery. (He's not bad, beaten me in a few events, but he peaked at the 1924 Olympics.) He's disappearing like a melting ice sculpture. Sad, really.

Pa-Cha is a ghost, all but gone, for an empty locust carapace scuttling around the pantheon.

And Priapus? Now, _there_ was a deity. Women used to lose their virginity on statues erected to him, and sorry about the pun there, but blood sacrifice is the shiznit. He might be coming back, though, he's getting a following. That little blue pill is _genius._

So I keep tabs, make sure my name is still out there during months other than February, just to keep up appearances. It makes Mom happy that her son is one of the "it" kids, and keeps Dad off my back.

Don't tell me you don't Google your name once in a while, or search Twitter for mentions. I know you do it, just like the rest of us. No one likes oblivion.

So when I get the blast of hate from nowhere, as if Hades just bitchslapped me backwards, I have to go look, like a prom queen following a Facebook conversation that's snarking about her dress.

I'm staring at this girl, she's hot in an athletic-but-not-butch-at-all way, and she's raging mad, and she's yelling, and she's just smeared me with blood.

And blood is life, people.

Her blood is wild, salty and rich with passion, and it makes my heart pound hard, but there is so much pain that I'm reeling. I stand there, shocked, gasping, and I must have said something aloud, because fuck me if both my parents aren't standing right behind me, looking at the girl who is flipping me off with both bloody fists.

At least they are both clothed and not arguing.

You know how it's so embarrassing to walk in on your parents when they are either fighting or getting it on? Imagine being the son of the Goddess of Love and the God of War. Squick isn't just a lifestyle at our house; Mom and Dad make it an artform.

"What on earth have you done, son?" Mom asks, hands on her hips. "Why is she shouting at you?"

"She's a feisty one," Dad approves, watching the girl ride away.

"I have no idea," I say, also watching her ride away. Girls always look good on a bicycle at that angle.

"Well, fix it," my mother says, smacking my head. "Now."

"Ow! Why?"

"Because she's shouting loud enough to wake Persephone, much less _me_, and I won't have the Queen of the Damned Pomegranate Seeds bitching to Zeus that I can't control my own child!"

"Me? What did I do?"

"I have no idea! It's your idol that she's spilling blood on, not mine."

Another shout of rage shakes the foundation. Mom winces. "She's giving me a headache."

Dad glares at me, and I roll my eyes. Heaven forbid he doesn't get any tonight.

"What am I supposed to do? I shoot arrows at people. Occasionally a snowball," I protest. "I don't deal with pissed off hormonal chicks on bicycles!"

The girl is pretty impressive, actually. She's about my age, with fantastic dark eyes and full lips too pretty to be spitting such dirty words. Mom catches me staring.

"You do now," she says, smirking.

"Just go talk to her," my father advises, like _he's _any good at peacemaking. Or parenting for that matter; he lets Phobos run wild. That kid can cause havoc within three seconds of escaping his playpen.

I contemplate some old-fashioned teenage defiance, but Mom gives me the bitchbrow.

"Make it stop. If you don't, you're grounded." She turns her back before I can protest. Her dramatic flounce is somewhat lessened by Dad, who grabs her ass as he follows her off.

I swear, and flick a speck of dirt at a dove that's watching a snail slime its way up a headstone.

Last time mom "grounded me," I was stuck in the mind of a giant tortoise for a month. D'you know how tortoises have sex? The male climbs aboard and if she's feeling shy, he bops her on the head until she draws it into her shell, which shoves her ass out, forcing her to assume the position. Can you guess which partner's shell the Goddess of Love decided I should inhabit? My head still hurts to think about it.

I stare after the girl, wondering where she's going, and what her problem is.

The dove coos with devotion, and sidesteps along the gravestone. The snail oozes on, oblivious.

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><p>My legs feel like jelly on the bicycle pedals, but I'm almost there. The one place, the only place in my whole fucking world where I am free of <em>them<em>, is the shooting range. They don't belong here. We-I mean, he and I-never came here together. This is a piece of me that is still all-Leah. It's like my own Fortress of Solitude, because every other part of my life is polluted with his presence-everywhere his shadow has passed, however briefly, holds his print. It's like poison, these traces of him I can't escape, and disillusionment and bitterness are the only antidotes I know. Temporary ones, but they're all I have. I'm just trying to survive. It feels like treading water, all my limbs struggling just to keep my head above the surface.

But this, this place. This place is mine.

I can feel the tension leaving my body, my armor falling off like I'm molting. I smile an easy, genuine smile at Old Joe and his pimply great-nephew manning the counter. I sign the logbook and go to my locker, not stopping to chat. I realize later that I should have noticed the funny looks on their faces, like they're seeing a carwreck in slow motion, unsure if they want to stop it or gawk or snap cameraphone video to sell to the news later. I'm too distracted by my own inner calm to notice anything awry.

I'm all ready to unleash a quiver of whoop-ass on the target I've named "Samily," when I think I see Old Joe trying to get my attention. But I'm too annoyed at the lavender roses and the cuts on my hands to pay him any mind. I can already feel the satisfaction of putting arrow to bowstring, squinting one eye and aiming, and that _whoosh_ as the arrow flies freer than I'll ever be, smacking Samily right through its deceptively cheery yellow center. I _need_that now, so no time for Old Joe.

Strange, someone ... has dared to take my spot in front of Samily. _Everyone_ at the range knows that this one is mine. It's silly to have a favorite target, I suppose, but I've been coming here for so long, and the staff was so great to me when I turned into a bereft, unloved zombie, and it was just sort of ... _accepted_ that Samily was mine. At first they'd just scoot out of the way and apologize, find a different target, but after a while it was like they saved that station for me. And here's this _body_in the way. I have half a mind to shoot an arrow right into it, but I realize that that's Homicidal Leah, and I don't want to be Homicidal Leah. Yet.

He-I think the offending body is a _he_, based on height and build-is messing around with his equipment, like he's not happy with the point of his arrow. He's not even ... shooting. Why am I more annoyed than I would be if he were just shooting arrow after arrow into the heart of Samily? I really want to shove him. Shoving wouldn't make me Homicidal Leah. Just Belligerent Leah, and I'm okay with that.

So I bump into him as hard as I can. "Oh, _excuse_me," I say, sounding polite, but not really. There is something so satisfying about the solidity of his body against mine as I pretend to trip, the whoosh of air I've pushed from his lungs in surprise (and I hope, maybe, a little pain). "You know us girls, so clumsy. Might shoot your eye out, haha," I say, but I kind of mean it. Okay, not really, but part of me wants to mean it, if that makes sense.

He doesn't turn around, and he doesn't acknowledge me, and I'm fuming now, wanting him just to turn the fuck around and _look_at me. Like, acknowledge my bitchy badassery, you target-usurping assmunch! But all I hear is a low chuckle, fucking smug little prick.

Oh my god. I am _so_ going to shoot him right in the back.


	2. Unfixable

**A/N: All things that belong to Stephenie belong to Stephenie. This is for a giggle, nothing more, and because someone wonderful actually paid money to a really cool charity to bribe us to do it.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 2: Unfixable<strong>

I am so fucked.

I stare at my thumb, and the indent of flesh, and the way the red stuff oozes out and sits, swelling inside its own surface tension. I wonder if I can suck my own poison out of it.

I've tagged myself before. I shot myself in the foot when some dancing idiot with an overeager elbow nailed me a good one at Elizabeth I's coronation. I often wonder what modern history would be like if I could have let her fall for someone. Fabulous woman; that was the epic older woman crush of the era, let me tell you.

Gods make mistakes. Look at naked mole rats; I mean, Dude, really?

I've made my share of them. I'm not proud of King Arthur and his sister, and I still feel guilty about Darryl Hannah and Lyle Lovett.

But this? This pissed-off cherub-kicker she-wolf with galaxies of pain in her black-as-midnight eyes? I don't need this.

I'd followed Dad's advice. I see where she was going, and think maybe the Fates are weaving a few strands in my direction, so I blow them a kiss and follow her to the archery range.

I duck in while she's chaining her bicycle, sign a book guarded by a man so wizened he puts Chronos to shame, and take a spot on the far side, wondering what I can say to her.

I hear her slam her locker, and instead of wincing at the noise, the old man and the young kid stare at me like I'm Pandora and my box is about to explode.

The girl comes out, and she's lithe with a pert body and trim curves, and she's carrying a Diamond Razor Edge compound bow with a Redhawk peepsight, which is just all kinds of _nice, _right there.

She signs the log book, and heads my way, and I realize I'm staring and so I look down at my quiver.

That's not a euphemism, by the way. All the myths you hear about the golden arrows? That's fact, people. My step-father makes them, which you'd think would be awkward, but Hephy is the best, he doesn't hold my mother against me.

I'm actually feeling nervous and weird, trying to figure out what to say to this chick, whose anger puts the Furies to shame, and I'm thumbing the tip of the arrow, pretending to test the edge, stalling, and _BAM,_ suddenly she slams up into me, and I nick my own fucking finger.

"Oh, excuse me," she says, all syrupy and polite, but it's burnt honey and no ambrosia, charred sarcasm, and _still_ sweet, dammit.

She's saying something else, but I stare at the blood, and close my eyes, wondering if I even have a chance, but she's there, russet skin and amazing cheekbones painted on the inside of my eyelids.

Finally I have to laugh, because I am just so _fucked_.

I turn around and open my eyes.

Her own widen, with that unconscious acknowledgement, the recognition of the man-woman thing, but then she blinks, and her eyes go dead, shuttering off all emotion, and it's so wrong, this girl with so much heat, and her cold dull eyes.

"Why are you here?" she says, and I'm not sure if she means _here, in this spot_ or _here, existing and breathing her air_. I have this sudden instinct to protect my balls, or maybe my kneecaps, her voice is so venomous.

I stammer a little, trying to untangle her meaning, when she takes another step forward, totally invading my personal space. I can smell her, her humanity and fire.

"This is my spot. Everyone knows that." She gazes past me at the target, and her eyes narrow, sharp as flint.

"I can move," I mumble, and lick the drop of blood off my thumb. She watches me without apology, her reaction only a tiny parting of her lips.

She looks at me like she's trying to reduce me to a pile of rubble with her hate. It's mesmerizing, and I momentarily forget that I've offered to move. I suddenly understand Gramps' fascination for the mortal chicks; it's their passion and urgency that gets under your skin.

"Whatever, I'm not in the mood anymore," she snarls, and stalks away again.

I hear the metallic slam of her locker door, and then the slap of a small strong hand on the heavy wood door that leads outside. I glance at the old man at the desk, but he doesn't look away from his book.

The kid with the acne shakes his head at me.

"Don't bother, man," he says, smirking, "just let her go."

I can't.

I grab my gear and go after her. She's unlocking her bicycle, spinning the numbers on the cable lock, and I know she knows I'm there, but she doesn't look up. She tugs on the cable, swears, and spins the numbers again.

"Fuck!" then, "What the hell are you looking at?"

"I'm sorry," I say, "for whatever I did."

She laughs, not nicely. "That's rich," she says. She's still staring at the bike lock, but her hands are still, and her body seems defeated.

"I am," I say. "Sorry, that is, not rich." Well, I am, I suppose, but that's not the point. I'm wondering if I should have just used Zeus's trick and come to her as a shower of gold, but I don't think that's what she means. She's not angry about money.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"_Why_ are you sorry?" She turns suddenly and fixes her eyes on me again. I wonder if she can trace her lineage back to the Gorgons; she could turn mortals to stone with that glare.

"Because, I," but this isn't about me, this is about her. "Look, you seem, I mean-"

She raises one eyebrow at me, and I take it as a good sign, that she's waiting for me to finish. I shove my hair off my forehead with a nervous hand, and then I get irritated with myself. I'm a _god_, for fuck's sake.

"I didn't know that was a reserved target. And I didn't mean to upset you."

She looks startled by this, like she's not used to people caring, and that makes my heart twist.

"Could I, could we start over?" I ask, attempting a smile. "Could I buy you a cup of coffee or something?"

Something flickers in her eyes, and then is shut down again.

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why?" Now she's being belligerent, and I'm getting pissed.

"_Why_? Let's see, we go for coffee, and that leads to dinner and a stupid movie we both pretend to be interested in while we sit, sweaty palmed, nearly touching but not, and if things go right, you kiss me at the door. Maybe my eyes are open in shock, and then you do that _whatever_ it is you boys do that makes me close my eyes and kiss you back, think you're perfect, until I find myself doodling your name on my notebook and on the bare skin of my knee poking out of my jeans. More dinners, more stupid movies that are just an excuse for us to grope in the dark, trying to make out the secret shapes, hard and soft, hidden under buttons and sweaters and thick denim, and it suddenly seems like a splendid idea to let every part of our flesh slap together, sweaty, dank, just, you know, _fluids_, and it's disgusting, but we call it love. We make up insipid names for each other, you take up my whole brain and my field of vision, and just when you're my entire horizon, when every part of my soul has been tattooed with your fingerprint, you punt me by the side of the road for some whorish, backstabbing cousin. Yeah, that sounds _fantastic_. Sign me up. Fuck you very much." She's growing more agitated as she rants, tugging on the bike lock and twirling the dials until she finally pulls the bike free.

I'm not sure if she's actually unlocked the thing or if the bitterness of her words has corroded the mechanism. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter.

I don't know whether to be insulted, depressed or turned on.

I briefly wonder which cousin she's talking about. I have a lot of them. The only one who is single that comes to mind is Scylla, and um, no. I don't do chicks with more than two heads, too many teeth, y'know what I mean?

She gets on her bike and tears off, spitting gravel on my shoes. I watch her leave, utterly confused.

"I take it that's a _no_, then?" I call after her.

I hear another curse of anguish aimed at the heavens, and I scowl.

Mom is _so_ not going to be pleased. I wonder if the house is even still standing, and hope I don't wind up in a praying mantis. They usually get their heads bitten off during sex.

A squirrel chatters at me, and I kick a chunk of gravel at it. I'm not half as amused as I should be when it immediately begins humping a confused ladybug. I ought to be laughing my head off at the hapless ladybug getting a face full of furry squirrel penis, but I just feel tired, and sort of sorry for both of them.

My thumb hurts.

And I can't believe she said I was _disgusting._

* * *

><p>Unbelievable. Unbe-fucking-lievable. It was bad enough Skinny Boy was in my spot, but then he tries to act all nice and pull that "oh, I can move" chivalrous bullshit. He's ruined my day just by existing. I'm riding my bike and trying to figure out what the hell else I'm going to do with my Saturday. I didn't really put much thought in it when I jumped on and started pedaling—I just wanted to get away from him and those eyes. God, it's been so long since someone's looked at me that way—concerned, curious, kind. And I know, I know it's my fault. I know I'm hard to love—I mean, even to like. I'm prickly and angry, and I feel so black inside these days that whenever I talk I feel like Edward Scissorhands is coming out of my throat, cutting everyone around me to ribbons. It's like I'm possessed, though, like some great goddess of vengeance passes through me, and I'm just a conduit for the rage of women that's been building since the beginning of time. Part of me is like, yeah, badass, and then sometimes I look at the shock, the fear, the loathing in their eyes, and I think, <em>It's not their fault. They didn't ruin my life<em>.

But then I think, _They probably ruined someone else's_. And I don't feel so bad.

I can't get Skinny Boy out of my head, and I hate that. I grit my teeth and pedal harder. I hate that I can remember the shape of his mouth, the sinewy beauty of his arms, and, _fuuuuck_. He asked me to coffee. For a second I considered saying yes. Like, my heart might have actually beat a couple times. And then I was drowning in tar again, remembering that dead look in Sam's eyes right before he said we were done. I knew before he said it. There was nothing left in those eyes for me.

"We should talk," he'd said. That's never good. Nothing good ever comes from talking. I mean, I knew some shit was up, when Skankily came to visit. You could feel the air crackle around those two. And sure, they seemed to hate each other at first, but hate is passion, so easily transformed to lust and angry fucking. He tried to pull some bullshit about "imprinting," like scales suddenly fell from his eyes and he could see clearly for the first time. Like, he liked me only because he had scaly eyes? What the fuck is that about?

"How could you do this to me?" I asked Skankily. We used to be best friends as kids, sharing clothes, putting on too much Wet n' Wild lipstick and staring at our clown-like reflections, wondering who we'd marry, how many babies we'd have.

She just shrugged. "I can't explain it," she said, eyes all glowing and shit. "I know it should feel wrong, but, god. I don't know how to put it. It's like we're two jagged halves of a broken pot, and we just discovered our edges line right up. It's ..."

I walked out of the room as she tried to explain, and I haven't spoken to her since. Whatever. Blood is thicker than water? What the fuck ever. There are a lot of things thicker than water. It's not like being thicker is some sort of good quality. Sewage is thicker than water. Vomit is thicker than water.

"Goddamn assmuching shit motherfucker!" I scream, gripping the handlebars and shaking the bike as hard as I can. I'm riding over a thick carpet of fallen leaves, some crunchy, some wet, some still supple. They're so pretty just for a moment, right before the trees reject them, cast them aside like last season's baubles. They become beautiful right before it's time to die.

I skid, not paying attention, and then suddenly I'm a tangle of limbs and bicycle and leaves and pebbles and oh my shit, that hurt. By the time I disengage from the bicycle, I'm sore, bleeding, and there's something slimy in my hair that I don't want to think about. This is possibly the worst day I've had since Sam snuffed the light out of me, I mean, except for when Dad died.

Then again, every day since has been the worst day. What's a little dead slug or wild animal spooge?

_Those cheekbones, the sharp shoulderblades under thin fabric ..._ I shake my head, trying to get the image of that skinny boy from the range out of my head. Should I have said yes? Is it like that stupid Gwyneth Paltrow movie, where I'm living a parallel life to this shitty one, and instead of sitting in a pile of leaves with scraped shins, I'm having coffee with Mr. Skinnyjeans? _"Room for cream?" _I imagine him saying, smirking with innuendo. I pretend to be offended, but I can feel a spark igniting inside me, making me shift slightly on the stiff wooden chair. I blow over the surface of the hot coffee, the porcelain almost burning my hands, like a hot rock, like a glowing coal, like a beating heart. Just like that, I realize my heart is in his hands, just like this cup, and I grow dizzy. The mug slips out of my grip in slow motion, and I see it shatter chip by chip on the floor. There's hot coffee everywhere, stinging my legs, staining my clothes.

It always ends this way. Didn't Gwyneth Paltrow end up dead in the happy version of her life?

I made the right decision. I don't need any skinny boy in my life. I don't need ... anyone. I pick myself up, rub the unidentifiable slime out of my hair, and walk my bike down the path until my body feels like it's knitting back together. I feel like I'm held together with paperclips, a strange, paper doll version of myself, and I numbly pedal home.

I flop back down on my bed, not bothering changing out of my soiled clothing. The temporary adrenaline rush from falling has seeped out of me, leaving behind the aching and throbbing of sore muscles. I hope I didn't pull anything. I should probably go downstairs and get an ibuprofen or something, but I am just dead tired. I watch the light fade, the shadows travel across the ceiling, and when I'm alone in the dark, listening to the crickets chirping outside, I let my eyes close because I can't think of anything else to do. I'm tired, not sleepy, but sleep finds me anyway, pulling me under, and I dream of a perfect, soft mouth, lips inviting and pink.

* * *

><p>I pick up the ladybug, because, well, yeah, that was just wrong.<p>

The poor thing is used to a good three or four hours of getting it on, y'know? Gotta give the ladydudebug props, he can _last_. And squirrel-boy can only go for about fifteen seconds tops before he busts a nut.—Which grow bigger than his brain during rodent rutting season, by the way. Can you imagine?

So he'll run off into the woods all lovesick and lonely, chasing his shadow or some other poor ladybug with the same number of spots, spooging squirrel sperm until he's empty, and his little fuzzy balls retract up into his abdomen for safekeeping.

I don't make this shit up, you know.

No one is looking at me but the wildlife, so I shrug off the shirt and flex, and arch my wings until they ache, and soar up, watching the girl on the bicycle. She's almost madder than she was before, except that she somehow seems defeated, the way she's got her shoulders pulled so tight inward, and that makes my stomach hurt for some fucked up reason.

I rise up higher and head home to sulk. The ladybug crawls over my wrist, tickling the skin.

"Oooh, you've got it bad, kid!" A familiar rumble cuts through my emo-wankage.

Gramps settles down next to me with a chuckle, and I don't even bother to put up the defenses, just nod like the sullen teenager I am. He's cool, though, he never gets all parental on my ass.

He follows my gaze as the girl walks her bike through the woods.

"She's a nice one," he murmurs, taking another look as she bends at the waist a little, pushing the bicycle over a bump.

I glare at him, warning him off, and he raises his eyebrows, mocking me, so I counter by raising an arrow, holding it so my middle finger lines up along the shaft, nodding with a silent threat to my mother's swan that is constantly leaving slimy goose poop all over the lawn. My grandfather just smirks, and raises a lightning bolt, and so I roll my eyes and shrug, because yeah, he's Zeus. He wins. The dude farts thunder, for fuck's sake.

"So how do you want to do this?" he asks. "You going to show up as her last lover? That worked pretty well for Alcmene—mortals usually fall for disguises..."

I didn't want a disguise. I mean, yeah, I hid the wings, and adjusted the accent so I sounded more like I was from Olympia, Washington rather than Olympia... well, you know. For some reason I just wanted her to see me as me.

"Chicks go for bulls, too," he adds, helpfully. I gave him a reproachful look, which he ignored. "Seriously, kid, Europa was wild for me."

I say nothing, not wanting to encourage him.

"I don't recommend hiding her under the earth. Thalia got a bit fussy about it," he advises, with a grimace. "Elara didn't like it at _all._"

"_Eros, dinnertime_," Mom yells. The swan flexes its wings, disturbed by the noise, and my mother stomps in. She's put on a few pounds; some culture must be paying tribute to the Venus of Willendorf lately. "Dad, what are you doing here?"

We all sort of look the other way when she calls him her father and not Uranus, though both have a claim; they could all go on Maury or something.

"I was just leaving," Grandpa says to her, kissing her cheek. "Good luck, kid."

"What does he need luck with?" Mom asks, her hands on her hips.

The girl is on her bed, still in her clothes, glaring upward like she can see through her ceiling to stare straight at me.

"You could pull off a good satyr if you wanted," Zeus says by way of farewell.

Like this is a compliment, or something; I would never be one of the goatboys that follow my cousin around. Dionysus is just gross. He's the most popular of any of us—the guy doesn't even have to try—he's worshipped with every cork that's ever popped from a bottle.

Don't tell me you haven't paid a little love to the god of the grape; we all have. The only reason he doesn't take over the whole place is that he's so drunk he can hardly walk.

"You didn't fix her?" Mom shrieks at me.

"She's unfixable," I mumble.

My mother starts a tirade, which I immediately tune out, curious as to where I'll wake up in the morning. I wonder what it would be like to be stuck in the mind of a squirrel. I guess a ladybug wouldn't be so bad. I mean, _three hours_? You can't beat that.


	3. Normal Enough

**A/N: Oh hey! It's been awhile. Sorry for taking, you know, more than a year to get back to this story. Not sure when the next chapter will be up, but hoping it won't be in another year. This chapter was all Feisty. Blue is super busy right now, but I hope she'll be back at some point to do some Love God POV.**

**Standard disclaimers, etc.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3: Normal Enough<strong>

Monday. Fucking Monday. Which means school, which I despise. But what I hate even more is being in my head all day, so I'll take school. At least school gives me the opportunity to direct my hatred at other people.

I used to go to the school here on the Res, but I asked to transfer after the shitfuckery of the most humiliating dump in history (aside from that time Seth got explosive diarrhea while we were shopping for school clothes in Port Angeles). So now I am one of the only "people of color" at the snow-white Forks High. Small towns are bad enough, but when you add in the bland cluelessness of people who think Uncle Ben's instant rice is "exotic" … I pretty much want to punch everyone in the face all the time.

I really need to find a healthier outlet for my anger.

Or, any outlet, really.

Then again, maybe these fuckers deserve it.

I'm in the shower, just standing under the hot water and letting it run down, not bothering to try to wash anything. I've got my eyes shut tight and my jaw clenched, and all of a sudden it feels like someone's clubbed me over the head like I'm a baby fur seal.

"Motherfucker!" I scream, as is the way of my people. I open my eyes and grab my head, feeling gingerly around, expecting a lump or a great gaping wound, but my head seems normal enough. _Ha, ha, normal enough_, I think to myself with a laugh.

"Why's it so wet in here?" a man says, and then I really shriek.

"I don't care how rapey a bastard you are; I _will _cut you," I say, grabbing my loofah back-scrubber and breaking the long wooden handle off as a weapon. I peer around the shower curtain, expecting to stab this asshole in the eye, but there's no one there.

"No. No, no, no," I hear the guy's voice again. "Mom, seriously?"

"Where _are_ you?" I hiss. "I will _fuck _you up."

My hand rises in front of my face and starts, I swear to god, touching my cheek.

"That's not my face," the guy says.

"Well, no shit," I say. I'm still wielding the jagged loofah handle in my other hand, ready to skewer balls. Then it hits me that my hand moved on its own, and I can't seem to stop feeling my own cheek. Now I'm _really_ freaked out. You'd think the big freak out would be "strange man in my bathroom while I'm naked," but, no, it's the possessed arm thing.

I jab the hand on my cheek with the loofah handle.

"Ow!" the guy says.

The weird thing is, I didn't feel a thing.

Well, it's official. I've lost my marbles.

Getting dressed while Some Male Thing has half-possessed your body is surprisingly trickier than it sounds. I mean, first you have the modesty issue. Like, what if it's some pervy asshole in your head who wants to have a long look at your goodies? Well at least I seem to have control over my eyeballs. Jesus, I never thought I'd feel that sentiment. I can't believe it's come to this: THANK GOD FOR EYEBALLS CONTROL. The fuck.

And then you have the issue of having physical control over only half of your body. Clasping a bra is tricky enough, thank you very much, without feeling like it's some weird three-legged race except with arms and your naked boobs and a grimy underwire bra. "Avert your eyes," I warn in my "sic balls" voice.

"Please! I am a consummate gentleman," says the voice in my head.

"Pffft."

"Okay, I admit I may have tried to sneak a peek until I realized I don't seem to have control over your eyeballs."

Seriously. It's come to eyeballs control. "Pig."

"Hey, I never hung out with Circe no matter what you …" He breaks off suddenly. I'm certainly not the only nutter here.

Oh, but I am. Because now there's a man in my head who controls half of my body. And I've just decided to go with it, because the alternative is having to talk to other people about my problems and maybe getting carted to the shrink again, which was no fun the first time and a huge waste of money if you ask me, but no one ever asks me. See, here I go talking to myself again, and what's the big difference if I'm talking to myself and another voice answers back? Who cares, right? And as far as the body-control part is concerned, maybe I've just had a stroke and I won't have to worry about all this teen angst bullshit, as Veronica Sawyer would say.

Oh, please be a stroke.

Team massive stroke!

I wait, hoping to keel over and be out of my misery.

No such luck.

* * *

><p>Mom drives us (<em>us<em> meaning me and Seth and the demon that's possessed me) to our schools (Seth is still at the Res school, and he could totally ride his bike or whatever, but he prefers to be driven because sometimes he's a lazy fuck and says he needs to be able to eat donuts with both hands, which is something he can't do while riding his bike). It's on the ride that I discover I don't actually have to talk out loud for the demon guy (I think I'll call him Matt Demon) to hear me. But it's not all my thoughts. I have to hold my breath and purse my lips and strain while I'm thinking, and then Matt Demon can hear me, loud and clear.

I'm glad I let Seth sit shotgun today because I'm pretty sure I look like I'm trying to pinch a loaf.

_**Where are you taking me?**_

_To school. _

_**School? How quaint.**_

_Yes, "quaint" is the word I'd use_, I think, rolling my eyes (again, thankful I have full control over my eyeballs). _Why quaint? Don't you have schools where you come from, Demon Boy?_

_**I'm not a demon! **_he protests.

_How else are you possessing my body?_

_**It's a long … never mind. You wouldn't believe me anyway.**_

_You think your secrets make you mysterious, but really you're just some pervy demon shacking up in this fine nubile female body_. I notice my right hand creeping up to cop a feel, so I slap it away with my left. "Asshole!" I shout, forgetting myself.

"Language, Leah," my mom says from the front seat. She sounds tired. Tired of my bullshit. _I'm sorry, Mom_.

"I just hate those_ Life Is Good_ spare tire covers," I say, looking at the SUV directly in front of us. "_Is_ life good? Is it actually _good_?"

"Well, we all hate those damn things, Leah, but there's no need to get angry at all the stupid people in the world. I don't have the energy for all that. I don't know how you do."

Don't know how I have the energy? It's the hatred that fuels me! Hatred is better than a complex carbohydrate for keeping those energy levels up. Take all my hatred and put it into little tubes for marathon runners, I might be able to pay for college, maybe go all the way and get my doctorate in hatred studies (interdisciplinary). If I didn't hate, I'd be lying face down on my floor and subsisting on a diet of Ben & Jerry's. Gotta keep hating. Hating is like my exoskeleton and all the adenosine triphosphate I could ever want. It keeps me protected and keeps me moving and I'd better stop thinking before I mix up any more biology metaphors.

_**Hating that much sounds exhausting.**_

_I didn't ask you._

_**Just saying, as a friend.**_

_Oh, you're a friendly teenage girl possessing demon? Good to know. Will file away for your ePossession feedback later. "So friendly! A+++++ definitely would let possess again."_

_**You're really strange, you know.**_

_I do know, and thanks for reminding me. Because that's not something I'm already feeling shitty about._

We ride in silence after that.

* * *

><p>Walking when someone else controls one arm and part of your leg is also more complicated than you'd think. <em>Left, right, left, right, Christ, will you work with me here? <em>I scream in my head. Why couldn't I get possessed by some coordinated, athletic demon?

_**Nice guy, that Christ. My mom thinks he's hot.**_

_Your mom's creepy. _We bicker internally as I try my best not to look like I have some sort of palsy as I stumble down the hallway, and I am nearly late for homeroom. Perched on the edge of her desk is that new girl that everyone's losing their shit over. I mean, I know they're all palefaces, but she's like, the palestface of them all. She does this annoying lip biting thing, as if that's cute or original, and then she has some serious blinking problem, but all the boys here think she's the hottest thing since free Internet porn.

_**What did she ever do to you?**_

_What?_ I snap, squinting my eyes to hateful little slits.

_**That girl? She steal your boyfriend or something?**_

I gasp, because, well, the reasons are obvious, and I kick myself, hard, in the leg I can't feel.

_**You know you're the one who's going to feel that bruise eventually. **_

_Maybe I'll find a way to make you stay forever._

_**Forever? Liking me, then? I knew you'd come around.**_

Cocky demon bastard. I try to imagine a dog whistle but in the frequency only Matt Demon can hear, and then I scream as loud as I can on that imaginary frequency.

_**You're the worst.**_

_No, I'm pretty sure you are. And no, that girl hasn't done anything to me. I just … you ever hear of love at first sight? _

He has the audacity to laugh at me. _**I may have, **_he says after he composes himself.

_Well, it's not quite hate at first sight, but it's intense dislike. And I'm not jealous!_ I add hastily. Because that's always what people think. Why would I want these lame asses to be fawning all over me? No thanks, Mr. Pimples and Mr. Junior Stalker and Sir Chess Club and Lord Jacksoff-in-the-library-in-the-900s-because-no-one -at-this-school-gives-a-shit-about-geography.

"I love to read!" I hear the new girl say, and the boys act as if that's the most profound thing anyone has ever said. "I also cook! Like, for my dad!" Then she puts on a sad face. "I don't like the rain." She shakes her head slowly. "It doesn't rain like this in Phoenix. Rain makes me frowny."

OMFG with the Phoenix again. I need to make a drinking game just for being near this bland paleface.

"Awwwww," say all the guys in sympathy. You've got to be kidding me.

_**She's** **interesting**_, Matt Demon interrupts. **  
><strong>

_If by "interesting" you mean "brain damaged," I will agree with you_.

_**She doesn't like any of those boys. She wants something else.**_

_Oh, do _not _tell me you also find her fascinating._

_**Just stating facts. I'm kind of good at reading people. At least the part about being interested, erm, romantically.**_

I wonder what he thinks about me. I wonder what my wants and desires look like mapped out to a demon that specializes in such things. But then I remind myself that I don't care what he thinks of me. This "he" being another voice in me. Then I realize I'm trying to convince myself that I don't care what this demon (that I've obviously imagined just to make my insanity less pathological) thinks of me. I want to lie on the floor and laugh myself sick. I used to be a normal girl once, I swear to God.

At lunch, I'm eating fishsticks and some greasy fries and watching the new girl stare at the Cullens. She's so typical. Everyone in this school is Cullens-obsessed, not least the Cullens themselves. They don't mingle with anyone but themselves. They don't even _date_ anyone but themselves. It's totally a real-life V. C. Andrews novel. (I end up staring at them a lot just because I can't keep myself away from a good trainwreck.)

_**That one, that constipated looking one-he likes her.**_

_What?_ It's so easy to forget Matt Demon's here.

_**The new girl. That constipated looking boy with trying-too-hard hair? Sitting at the table with the beautiful people? I think they like each other.**_

"He doesn't like anyone but himself," I mumble into my soggy fishstick, and I'm glad that I'm sitting alone. I think people at this school are afraid of me.

Okay, okay, so on my first day at this school I _may_ have asked those fawning boys what the fuck they were staring at and to mind their own business and I _may_ have kicked a guy who tried to talk to me. Did I leave that part out? Whatever.

_**It's almost an energy you can feel. I should … nudge it.**_

_There will be no …. NUDGING. I mean, ew._

I'm busy staring and being grossed out and, okay, laughing a little that Matt Demon thinks Edward Cullen looks constipated, because he _totally_ does, and am I the only one in this school who can see it? I'm thinking about constipated Edward Cullen with his "smell the fart" face, and I notice, too late, that Matt Demon is using MY OWN ARM to throw something toward the Cullens' Table of Exclusivity. In my peripheral vision, I could swear it's a tiny golden arrow, but when I look straight on, it's a plastic coffee stirrer. I think. Right before the hand lets go of the coffee stirrer, I smack it with my left one so the trajectory changes. The stirrer hits doughy Mike Newton in the face. He's sitting next to the new girl (Mr. Junior Stalker himself). He turns to her, rubbing his cheek, and I swear the numbnuts starts drooling. "BELLA, DO YOU WANT TO GO TO THE DANCE WITH ME? PLEASE SAY YES," he bellows, cupping her face in his hands and looking at her like a starving dog staring at a juicy T-bone steak.

Edward Cullen looks even more constipated. The new girl stammers and bites her lip and flutters her eyelids, and I think I'm going to barf up fishsticks on everyone. "I don't dance," she says, shaking her head. "Dance is hard, Bella clumsy." The boys collectively sigh, because _omigod she is so charming._Newton looks horrified and runs from the lunchroom.

I admit, that whole scene was kind of awesome.

Still, I can't have Matt Demon give me an even worse reputation at this school than I already have. _The fuck are you doing, demon-boy?_ I demand.

_**Sorry, reflex.**_

_Did you say "reflux"? Does demon-reflux give you uncontrollable urges to throw things at tools? Because I can maybe get behind that_. I'm serious. I've always wanted to throw things at assholes for no reason whatsoever and to have some sort of medical diagnosis to use as an excuse. "I'm sorry, I have a touch of the demon reflux," I could say. Maybe I could even get a note signed by a doctor that I could carry around with me!

_**I enjoy your headspace, **_Matt Demon says, with a deep throaty chuckle that makes me feel suddenly warm in my belly.

I'm glad one of us enjoys it, at least.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I missed you guys! Did I miss anything in the fandom? [forever lolz]**


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